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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

That American Thing

For ten seconds we had those floppy-haired, floppy-legged cheating bastards. An American counter-attack found the ball at ex-talisman, now-substitute DeMarcus Beasley's feet. His shot blew through the outstretched arms of gambling flopping Italian cheater goalie Buffon and into the net. Incomprehensible whoops, awkward white-boy high fives, and small prayers to Beasley shrines were all the rage for a regrettably brief moment in time. A checkered flag raised into the sky changed all that.

God, what a moment that was, a moment the team richly deserved. Down to nine men to Italy's ten, having dominated a flatly disgraceful Italian team whose one goal came off an illicitly-gained free kick after one of their six dozen dives in the first half alone, after that Czech disaster and the Beasley-Arena bitching that followed... damn. Goddammit. The worst part of it all is that the call was the only one the gibbering, retarded, probably Italian-Uruguayan referee got right all day. To have it ripped away was the height of cruelty. Doesn't soccer know how Rocky ends? THERE'S NO OFFSIDES IN ROCKY.

Damn. This is how this thing started, you know, this whole World Cup business. It was games like this, where fate conspired against all that is good and right in the world, that caused entire nations to stop when any measure of long-cold revenge could be gained. I now despise two nations because of one game. Attention, George Bush: I have extremely reliable information that indicates that Osama Bin Laden is currently hiding in referee Jorge Larrionda's testicles. Suggested course of action: total destruction thereof.

If the World Cup is the apex of sport-induced jingoism worldwide -- and it is -- count me in. I can't continue any further without breaking down into yet more torrents of shameful, shameful profanity, but goddamn that was stirring. Redcoats at Fort Saratoga? Bring 'em on. Hitler? Let's roll. Italy? Eye of the tiger, baby.

If only we had an answer for Uruguay. I've got mine: bomb it into the stone age.

Okay. Okay. This is even less sane, sober, and edited than normal, I realize. But we beat Ghana and the dastardly Italians beat the Czechs and we get Apollo Creed in round two. Let's get it on.